Being Barefoot : Natural, Beneficial and Anti-aging

Babies run barefoot all the time. They move on sprightly tippy-toes, always leaning forward, letting gravity do the work. Then put that baby in shoes. Watch what happens. The baby suddenly becomes the spawn of Frankenstein, taking awkward robotic steps, landing hard, and teetering to stay upright.

What happened to the light, nimble toe dancing?

It disappeared because the shoes locked the baby’s feet into awkward positions—and locked out the baby’s natural stride.

When you feel the ground, you unlock the hidden potential within. Wearing shoes demolishes that process. It’s not impossible to have good form with shoes on, but it’s harder and requires a lot more conscious effort for learning baby.

Young children should be encouraged to spend as much time as possible barefoot. We know that this is especially important for the proper formation of the foot arch in the first six years of life. This is the time when nerves and brain development is at highest speed of development. This is the time when sensory development is at critical stage. This is the time when children learn to walk.

So, moms, trash the WEEBOCKS and let your kids develop strong healthy feet just as they were meant to. Keep them BAREFOOT AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE. Let them experience all turfs, sand, soil, cement, asphalt, tiles, marble, grass! DON’T BE in HURRY for DRESSING THEM LIKE an ADULT! Let them remain natural as long as they become adult 🙂 !Why impose your imaginations on them? 🙂Take care.

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What orthopedic surgeon says?

“During barefoot walk/running, the ball of the foot strikes the ground first and immediately starts sending signals to the spinal cord and brain about the magnitude of impact and shear, getting most of its clues about this from the skin contact with the surface irregularities of the ground. Take away this contact by adding a cushioned substance and you immediately fool the system into underestimating the impact. Add a raised heel and the shod runner is forced to land on it. Strap the cushioning on tightly with the aid of a sophisticated lacing system and you block out shear as well, throwing the shock-absorption system even further into the dark. The system responds by landing harder in an attempt to compress the cushion and “feel” the ground.”

Not only this, barefoot walks also help in maintaining working memory of the mind!

Who really needs working memory when we have Terabytes of storage! 😉 Running is not needed 😉

Nowadays, running has become status. Without specific branded shoes, many of my friends cannot run 😉 Forget barefoot.

An Exploratory Study Investigating the Effects of Barefoot Running on Working Memory.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27166325

The aim of the present study was to compare the potential cognitive benefits of running barefoot compared to shod. Young adults (N = 72, M age = 24.4 years, SD = 5.5) ran both barefoot and shod on a running track while stepping on targets (poker chips) and when not stepping on targets. The main finding was that participants performed better on a working memory test when running barefoot compared to shod, but only when they had to step on targets. These results supported the idea that additional attention is needed when running barefoot to avoid stepping on objects that could potentially injure the foot. Significant increases in participant’s heart rate were also found in the barefoot condition. No significant differences were found in participants’ speed across conditions. These findings suggested that working memory may be enhanced after at least 16 minutes of barefoot running if the individual has to focus attention on the ground.